The Lowdown In Tech This Week: 5-21-10
May 21st, 2010 // 10:43 am @ Terrance Gaines
Google, Google, And More Google
Google I/O Conference is this week, and the giant has pulled no punches with its announcements. One of which is Google TV. A set-top box with Android guts and the ability to download mobile apps, but made to view television shows, movies, and video anywhere they are found on the web. Got an Android phone (or an iphone, touch or pad), well you can get an app that will allow you to control your Google box over wifi.
Speaking of Android, Google also used the Conference also let loose the new Android “Froyo” mobile OS that’s fully Flash compatible and is claimed to run laps around the current iPhone OS (the summer will be HOT when Apple drops their new iphone OS 4.0 this June).
Speaking of Apple, Google has also announced a cloud-based service that will allow Android phones to live stream itunes music uploaded to the cloud. That is in direct competition with Apple that plans to announce its own itunes cloud media service as a result of buying and shutting down the LaLa music site that allowed you to upload, download and buy itunes compatible music and access it via the web.
If you’ve had enough Google for this update, then TOO BAD, because Google I/O also took the time to announce that Google Wave, the online communicating, sharing, collaboration, and networking service is live and open to the public. So if you are looking for a way to meet with your group that’s spread out over the country, or just want to share some pictures with Grandma in real time, you now don’t need an invite to use wave (but you will need either Google Chrome, Apple Safari, or Mozilla FireFox browsers in order to use Wave…sorry Microsoft Internet Explorer users *sad face*)
It seems as if Big Brother Google is in Full effect!
Category : Computer/Networking Tech &Home Tech &Mobile Tech
mSpot Now Brings Your iTunes Music To The Cloud And Android Phones
May 19th, 2010 // 9:24 am @ Terrance Gaines
via TechCrunch
If you’re one of those people who has jumped on the Android bandwagon, mspot has a private beta going on that will allow you to upload your entire music library to the cloud for access anytime, anywhere, via any Android device.
The service is in private beta now. So that means you need an invite to take part (go to TechCrunch to see if they have some invites left.)
If not, you will have to wait for the service to go public in the upcoming months…or wait for Apple to announce its own version which is rumored to drop since it bought Lala (a similar service) and shut it down soon after.
- A Posterous Joint
Category : Mobile Tech
The Lowdown In Tech This Week: 5-7-10
May 7th, 2010 // 2:10 pm @ Terrance Gaines
Bit.ly Shows Off Their Revamped Site
image via: InterAwesome
Those of us who are heavy into sharing links via social networking sites should be pleased to know that the popular URL shortening site Bit.ly has done a revamp that includes automatically shortening URL’s (before you have to click ‘shorten’), and adding more functionality like quickly searching your short link history and recovering deleted links. They’ve also added more real-time tracking and analytics so you can obsess over how many people are clicking your links up-to-the-second.
Google Touches Up Desktop & Mobile Search Pages
image via: BloodHoudBlog.com
Google has added a left side search optimization bar to both its desktop AND its mobile search page. It’s similar to the current bar at the top of the search page that has the ‘image, web, videos, etc. options; but with more options that will enable you to further zero in on the actual results you were looking for. It reminds me of the Bing search engine by Microsoft, or eBay’s search options. Either way, I think it’s a nice addition, especially to the mobile page. You could for instance narrow your search without repeatedly changing your initial search words.
Scribd and Opera Jump on the HTML5 Bandwagon
image via: andyuk.net
You could say it has been a rough couple of weeks for Adobe seeing as their Flash product that has pretty much been a web developer’s must have to bring media content to the web has been loosing support in favor of HTML5, the new web language. HTML5 isn’t fully adopted and integrated yet, but recently, Apple slammed Flash and is NOT adding it to ANY of it’s mobile devices, and Microsoft sees a bright [web] future with HTML5 and is making plans for future developments around it. Slowly but surely, more and more companies are following suit. Next on that list is media sharing/publishing site Scribd, and mobile web browser platform Opera.
Scribd says it doesn’t need Flash because its content isn’t really heavy enough to need a powerful web plug-in like Flash, and Opera said that using Flash on a mobile device was similar to cooking an egg on the concrete in the sun. So both of the them are endorsing HTML5 and as a result, delivering another blow to the future of Flash.
Apple Fanboys/girls Need Love Too!
image via: Cupidtino
The new site Cupidtino (a mash-up of the ‘Cupid’ & Cupertino, CA where Apple’s HQ is located) plans to be the “hook up” site those in love with their Apple Products. In addition to just provide a place for Apple fans to date, mate, and birth entire Apple families, members will also have access of exclusive social and location-based apps for the iPhone and iPad.
I will leave you with a quote from Techcrunch, that I happen to cosign:
“On the other hand, making sure that Apple fans only date other Apple fans is a good way of stopping them from spreading their Apple fan genes to the general population, I guess. So maybe this site isn’t all bad.
Category : Computer/Networking Tech &Mobile Tech &Random Tech &Web Tech
